Early morning, sunrise.
At six o'clock, Noah seriously suggested that he drive. The road conditions on the national highway were not that good, and due to the altitude changes, Ryan could not drive continuously for such a long time.
When it was just getting light, the two got out of the car and ate something at a stall beside the highway. Then they exchanged positions, with Noah driving and continuing on their journey.
After Noah sat in the driver's seat, Ryan pointed to several operating positions in the car with a sleepy Beijing accent and said, "Gear shift, handbrake, emergency rescue, rearview mirror adjustment is in front of the window button, here, lane keeping, here is the radar switch. Thank you for your hard work."
"Okay, take a nap." Noah said.
The tone of speech ultimately comes from the language environment. If the language environment is strong enough, it is easy to be led astray. The most obvious one is the Northeastern accent, which governs everything.
Noah had spent quite a while in Tibet, speaking Mandarin with his colleagues, and had forgotten most of his Beijing accent, which had been brought back to him by Ryan.
But in fact, Ryan mainly uses "you" when speaking at home. He doesn't use "you" much when he gets to know his peers at work. But his grandfather pays great attention to this and reminds him from time to time that "you" means respect and that we are a big country and a country of etiquette.
This time, Ryan experienced the concept of a great power at a physical level.
After this long drive, Ryan felt that China's geography was amazing. When on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, he was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and after turning onto National Highway 109, the scenery suddenly turned into a grassland with a view to the horizon.
He found a relatively comfortable position and nestled in the passenger seat, closing his eyes. Driving long distances is not physically tiring, but the fatigue of the brain caused by long-term high concentration of the mind.
Ryan fell asleep and woke up intermittently. The main reason was that the Mercedes-Benz G-Class was too tall. The tall body meant greater wind resistance, and greater wind resistance meant that when driving on the road, there was a lot of noise from the airflow, which was called "wind noise".
I don't know how long it took, but he frowned and muttered in the passenger seat: "What a noisy car."
He thought that Noah would not hear the loud airflow in the car, or at least not clearly. As a result, Doctor Fang was slightly surprised, and then quickly turned into a relaxed laugh: "Don't, I was just thinking that other people's cars really can't be driven, and if they can be driven, I want to buy it."
Ryan smiled and took out his cell phone. Outside, the green grassland stretched to the horizon, and he didn't even look at the herds of cattle, sheep, and horses. This made Noah a little curious. He thought Ryan might not be a tourist. A normal tourist would have lowered the car window to take pictures.
The route to Tibet is breathtakingly beautiful. The golden light of the sunrise falls on the peaks of the snow-capped mountains. It is a scenery that many people have never seen in their entire lives, but some people can actually resist just taking a look at it.
As the sun gets stronger, more cars are on the national highway, and the vendors setting up stalls around it are also getting busier. There are many people doing business along the national highway, which is also called the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and is one of the main roads for transporting materials in Tibet.
So there were more cars, most of which were large trucks with trailers, rumbling past us.
Having said that, the G63 is the G63, with a height of 1.9 meters and a V8 engine, it is not inferior to the big trucks. Noah gave some gas and passed two cars in a row. Only then did Ryan lower the window and look outside with little interest.
"Why aren't you excited at all?" Noah asked, "Many people come to Tibet for the first time and take more than ten photos of the same scenery."
"I'm quite excited." Ryan said lightly.
Noah couldn't handle this, but he didn't continue. Because there was nothing to say, Ryan came to Tibet in a G-Class at his age, which gave people the most intuitive judgment - at least, he was rich.
Simply buying a Mercedes-Benz G-Class does not necessarily mean that a person is wealthy, but if one is willing to drive a G-Class on the national highway in Tibet, then that means he is truly wealthy.
I swear to God, Ryan really didn't lie. He looked at the vast grassland outside, the natural land without any urban construction, and he felt much more comfortable.
The main reason was that Noah hadn't seen his face in Beijing. At that time, he overturned three desks in the school office, and finally kicked over the computer host of a gossipy teacher and stepped on it with one leg. At that time, the teacher slipped and fell, pointing his trembling fingers at Ryan's face. What did he say?
Ryan couldn't remember what the teacher said, probably a warning, something like "If you dare to touch me, I will call the police immediately."
Ryan is not stupid, so he certainly won’t hit anyone, but he still has to turn the table over, otherwise he will suffocate to death.
People, of course, cannot be suffocated to death. So he traced the source and found the teachers who spread the rumors. Sure enough, they were from the same office. He took advantage of the situation and exposed three of them.
It also affected two potted plants and a water dispenser, as if it was destroying the place.
When the matter reached the school, several school leaders were actually troubled. Ryan had passed the trial class and written examination, and his political review was also clean and he came from a good family.
It was certainly wrong to spread rumors, and it was also wrong for Ryan to overturn a table and smash someone's office. In the end, they were both given fifty lashes, apologized to each other, and that was it.
Ryan was unwilling to let it go. He firmly believed that he was not wrong in this matter and refused to apologize.
What did he do wrong? He was born into a rich family with the skills to do business. His family had been engaged in business for three generations and he had studied hard for ten years. The merchant family wanted to cultivate a scholar with a good taste of ink. So they carefully guided him from a young age and asked him to read more books of sages.
As he was studying, Ryan had the idea of teaching, and his family naturally supported him. He studied hard, passed the normal school entrance exam, graduated from graduate school, and entered high school.
It happened that the school had a teaching support plan to provide school-to-school education assistance to remote areas and recruit teachers. Ryan was full of enthusiasm and wanted to go to the frontier. But he was arranged to add gold to his resume and make it easier to get promoted in the future.
Then he came.
In the Tibet Autonomous Region, further south of Shannan City, almost at the national border, there is a small county town in a mountain valley.
The school offered to buy me a plane ticket but I refused and drove here myself.
"We're heading to Nagqu next." Noah said.
"Ah?" Ryan came back to his senses, "Oh, let's have a meal."
Noah hummed and said, "The car needs gas, too."
There are still more than 300 kilometers from Nagqu to Lhasa. As Ryan expected, he will arrive in Lhasa at about 5 pm. He has booked a hotel in Lhasa, and will have a good sleep tonight. He will go to Shannan tomorrow and then to the county.
Noah drove the car into the gas station and queued up, and Ryan got out of the car and stretched.
"Which number do you want?" Noah was still in the car. He lowered the window and asked.
Ryan: "98, there is a gas card on your forehead."
"Okay." Noah smiled.
Ryan walked to the driver's side and reached into the window: "Doctor Fang, fire."
"This is the gas station." Noah stared at him.
"Tsk." Ryan said helplessly, "Don't I have this little common sense? There's a store selling baked buns in front. I'll go over there and take a look. I've lost my blood circulation from sitting in the car."
Noah nodded and warned, "Don't run too far."
"Don't just drive away with me in a Mercedes."
"That's impossible." Noah said, "I still owe you five hundred."
Ryan smiled, played with the lighter in his hand, and walked towards the small stall in front of the gas station. The stall not only sold baked buns, but also some pastries that he didn't recognize.
The stall owner, holding a little girl by the hand, smiled and asked him in fluent Mandarin: "What would you like to eat?"
The eldest sister had dry skin and the high altitude redness that is common on the faces of local people. The lower half of the little girl's face was wrapped in a face towel, probably for sun protection. Her eyes were very dark and big, and she stared at Ryan.
Ryan pointed at a few things and found that the girl was indeed looking at him. He thought he looked good, but he also thought that since the girl was setting up a stall on the highway, she must have seen a lot of people, so she wouldn't stare at him just because he was handsome.
But he was curious, so he asked his elder sister: "Is this your daughter?"
"Yes." The elder sister smiled and hugged the girl. "I'm sorry, the school said that the volunteer teacher will be here soon, and she thinks everyone looks like her teacher."
"Oh, I see." Ryan nodded, picked up his things and said goodbye.
The girl was too young, she should be an elementary school student, and Ryan's teaching position was in junior high school, Grade 9. I guess it was close to the start of school, and the news of teaching from all sides had been settled.
Ryan sighed a little. The girl's inquiring eyes just now were full of respect for the teaching profession.
Educators really can't stand seeing such looks, and he immediately felt sad and walked away quickly. At the same time, he was also glad that he chose to come here to teach, and for a while, the troubles in the school were relieved a lot.
Ryan found an open space and used Dr. Fang's lighter to smoke a cigarette. When he turned back to the gas station, he happened to see Noah driving slowly out of the gas station exit. Noah also saw him and honked the horn, and Ryan waved.
Noah parked the car at the end of the highway, turned off the engine and got out. He said, "Put your things in the car first, and we'll go wash our faces behind the gas station."
"Oh." Ryan nodded and put the buns on the passenger seat.
There was a convenience store in the gas station. They bought a disposable toothbrush and toothpaste, and then they washed up in the restroom of the gas station. The cold water splashed on their faces was quite comfortable, and then Noah took out a tube of sunscreen from his pocket.
Ryan did not make any plans before coming to Tibet. He had not yet taught a class at the high school in Beijing. This was his first semester after the completion of his internship and there was nothing to hand over, so he came here as soon as he packed his luggage.
When I saw the sunscreen in Noah's hand, I realized that this is a plateau and the ultraviolet rays are extremely strong.
"Thank you." Ryan felt warm in his heart, thinking, is this what it's like to meet a fellow villager in the frontier? It's really heartwarming.
Then Noah didn't let go: "I mean to squeeze a little for you, do you want me to give you a whole tube?"
...
The two looked at each other awkwardly for a moment, but Noah couldn't hold it back and burst out laughing: "Just kidding, I only have half of this tube left, and I just bought you a new one at the store."
As he said this, he took out a whole cigarette from another pocket of his coat.
... Ryan sighed, "Doctor Fang, I really can't stand any emotional fluctuations recently."
"I'm sorry." Noah squeezed a large amount of sunscreen on the back of his hand, "Although I don't know what you've been through, just relax when you come to Tibet."
"Ah?" Ryan didn't understand.
Noah pointed at the back of his hand, signaling him to apply sunscreen first, and said, "Let's go first, don't chat in front of the bathroom."
So the two of them talked as they walked.
Noah said: "Do you know why Tibet makes people peaceful?"
"Why?" Ryan casually smeared sunscreen on his face.
Noah said: "The oxygen is thin and I can't move, so I naturally feel quiet."
Ryan: ...
Noah smiled and walked to the front of the car, patted the hood, and said, "Whether you bring a story or a Mercedes, Mr. Xu, this is Tibet. After crossing the Tanggula Mountains, leave all distractions behind. Get in the car."
"I'm a teacher," Ryan said, "I teach high school mathematics."
Noah nodded: "Teacher Xu."
"Hey, Doctor Fang." Ryan replied.
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